


Changing Whatever It Is I'm Changing Into

by waketosleep



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Person of Interest, Surveillance, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waketosleep/pseuds/waketosleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting picked up for vagrancy and public drunkenness and then assaulting the cop wasn't even the worst night Rudy had ever had, but it was likely in the top five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing Whatever It Is I'm Changing Into

**Author's Note:**

  * For [templemarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/gifts).



> Written for the 2012 YAGKYAS exchange on Livejournal. This is a Person of Interest fusion; basic knowledge of the premise of Person of Interest would be useful to understand this fic.

Rudy fumbles out his keys to let himself into the library, calling out as he makes his way to the back room with the windows, "They were all out of coffee, so I got you oolong tea, Paps."

Pappy doesn't dignify that with a response, and Rudy grins to himself as he turns the corner at the periodicals. "I'm just kid--" He stops dead, the toe of his shoe a scant inch from an upside-down book. One of the computer monitors is on the floor, surrounded by smashed glass. The glass markerboard is spiderwebbed from some impact. An entire shelf of nature books is scattered everywhere, pages bent. 

The coffee and tea in Rudy's hands hit the tiles unheeded and his sidearm is in his hands, but it only takes two minutes of casing the place to confirm his suspicions: he's too late. Whoever broke in is gone. Pappy's gone. 

Rudy's long since given up swearing as a habit, but it's either that or punch the metal bookshelf. 

*** 

Getting picked up for vagrancy and public drunkenness and then assaulting the cop wasn't even the worst night Rudy had ever had, but it was likely in the top five. It seemed reasonable enough that he had to spend a night in jail--at least it was heated--but he was rudely woken from his drunken coma by the duty officer. 

"You made bail. Up you get, Sunshine. Think about finding a shower." 

Rudy had spent his last five bucks on Old Crow that afternoon so he definitely hadn't made bail; he stared at the officer until he was herded out into the street. It was starting to rain and the pavement shone in the streetlights; Rudy sighed and walked down the front steps of the precinct, feeling the thin spots in his shoes keenly when he stepped in puddles. 

The man on his nine had just gotten out of a black sedan with his hands in his coat pockets, but there was no line of a concealed weapon under his raincoat so Rudy just eyed him. 

"My employer wants to speak with you," the man said, nodding back toward the car. 

Rudy could have walked away at that point. The man couldn't have forced him to do anything before Rudy broke four bones and made his exit, stage right. But instead he got in the car. 

There was another man sitting in the backseat. He didn't even glance over when Rudy slid in next to him. "I'm glad we got you out of there before they finished processing you, Mr. Reyes," said the man, and Rudy's blood went ice-cold. "Otherwise the hits on your fingerprints might have kept you there for quite a while." 

Rudy stared, his back against the door. He realized belatedly that the child-locks were on and he'd have to break the window with his elbow to get out. 

The man finally looked at him. "You don't mind Mr. Reyes, do you?" His voice had a soft drawl. "That's the name you typically go by." 

"Who the fuck are you?" 

"You can call me Patrick." 

"Patrick what?" 

" _Mr._ Patrick. I paid your bail, obviously." 

"And you want what in return?" Rudy was bracing himself for the pain of putting his elbow through the window. He wasn't drunk enough to dull it anymore, especially with the adrenaline rush. 

"I've got a job offer for you," said Mr. Patrick. "Most vets wouldn't mind being in your position." 

*** 

Rudy's killed people. Plenty of people. Lots of them (not all of them) were bad people, and he was good at it. But he doesn't kill people anymore, he saves them. Like Superman in a single-button. It feels much more like a world-changing accomplishment when he saves a person than when he kills a bad guy. 

But right now, he could murder a human being and feel vicious satisfaction over it. 

He's tracked Pappy to Maryland. Unless someone's figured out Pappy's not dead and not some middle-class recession victim squatting in a library and is holding him ransom for his fortune, Rudy has to assume that this is about the Machine. 

"You told me that nobody knew about your involvement, Paps," he hisses at his phone, which stubbornly refuses to locate Pappy's GPS signal. Whoever kidnapped him apparently destroyed his phone, and the motel room in Pittsburgh, when Rudy had kicked in the door, revealed only Pappy's clothes left heaped on the floor with his bluetooth dot still concealed in his belt. Busted phone, change of clothes, lo-fi escape; this person knows all of Pappy's tricks. 

But not all of Rudy's. And the trail's gone cold again in Maryland but he's going to pick it up. 

*** 

It was after they averted their second murder and Mr. Patrick finally told Rudy about the mysterious Machine that Rudy got really annoyed. 

"I just don't understand why you decided it had to be me," he declared, pacing angrily in front of English Poetry. His expensive new suit didn't rustle with his movements and it chafed him that they didn't chafe him: after months and months in dirty handout clothes from the shelter, he should have felt uncomfortable in these clothes, but instead they felt comfortable, like a second skin that fit better than the old one. It stoked his temper. "You just picked me up from lockup; you don't know a damn thing about me except my name. Not even my real name, I might add!" 

Patrick was infuriatingly unflappable as he leaned back in his desk chair, hands folded over his stomach, and turned away from the computer a little to watch Rudy wear a hole in the floor. "Well, since you picked up and kept the name Reyes after you ran away from foster care, it seems as good a name as any to call you," he said calmly. 

Rudy stalled, turned and stared. 

Patrick didn't seem to notice. "I'm still impressed you managed to use that name to get into the Marine Corps, although I do suspect that most people have a hard time refusing you anything that you decide you want enough to actually go after. And then, of course, in the CIA using a name that's not your own is considered a positive." He glanced up and met Rudy's stare. "I know everything about you, Mr. Reyes. I do my research. I know your background. I know why you left the military and then the CIA even though your only other viable option was to fake your own death and then try to drink yourself into a real one." He looked thoughtful. "I have to say I didn't know that anyone like James Bond actually really _existed_ , but you're full of surprises." 

"I know seventeen ways to kill you right now," Rudy hissed. 

"I'm sure you're lowballing it, Reyes; don't sell yourself short." 

*** 

Six days after Pappy disappeared, Rudy picks the lock on the front door of an expensive townhouse in Bethesda and finds him tied to a carved walnut chair in the living room, wearing an oversized and rumpled t-shirt and jeans that look ridiculous on him. A silver-haired man is bleeding out on the rug nearby. 

"Oh my god, Rude," Pappy breathes when they lay eyes on each other, and the next thing Rudy knows, he's kneeling in front of the chair. 

"Are you hurt, Paps? Your spine?" It's fused in three places after all; Rudy once saw the ugly GSW scars on Pappy's back and has since made up increasingly horrifying explanations for why they're there. 

"I'm not too bad," says Pappy, and they both ignore how pale he is when he says it. Rudy cuts the cable ties that are digging into his wrists and turns his attention to the other man, who's going cold. 

"He worked for the DoD," says Pappy. "He was the only other surviving person from the Machine project." His voice cracks a little. 

Rudy can't spare any thought for the dead man. "Let's get you out of here." 

"How did you find me?" 

"I'm James Bond, remember?" Rudy jokes weakly as he helps Pappy out of the chair. "You can't hide anything from a super-spy." 

The front door clicks open and Rudy locks eyes with a skinny, frankly gaunt looking man who immediately pulls a gun. 

Rudy's hand is closing over the butt of his own sidearm and he's going to put a bullet between that fucker's eyes when Pappy chokes out a, "Don't." 

Rudy has a clean shot but he hesitates. 

"Don't, Rude." 

"He's a murderer and a kidnapper and probably a crazy person." 

"He deserves to be prosecuted, not shot." 

The man in the doorway sees something in Rudy's face and his own weapon lowers just slightly before he vanishes back out the door. 

"Dammit!" Rudy starts after him but stops after three steps. Pappy is muttering curses to himself and leaning hard on the giant dining table and Rudy can chase the kidnapper or he can help his friend, but he can't do both. 

"He wanted the Machine," says Pappy breathlessly as they make their slow way to the door. 

"I know," says Rudy. 

"This is exactly why I hid it away." 

"You did the right thing, Paps. But when we get back to New York, I'm going to make you start carrying a gun. Or we're getting you an attack dog or something, I don't know." 

"Jesus Christ, Rudy," Pappy says tightly, but Rudy can hear the affection in it. 

*** 

"Mr. Reyes, if I didn't know better I'd have to say you're starting to like this job," drawled Pappy over the Bluetooth in Rudy's ear. 

Rudy finished stuffing an unconscious Estonian mob thug in the trunk of his stolen BMW (they were so roomy). "It has its perks, Paps. Hey, you wanna go to a ballgame after this?" 

"When did you figure out I liked baseball?" 

Rudy grinned to himself as he strolled to the driver's side of the car. "I notice things. I'm smart. So, the Yankees are playing the Rangers tomorrow. Who are you gonna root for?" 

"Rudy, before I answer that, I'd like to remind you that the ball team I like doesn't necessarily hint at where I come from." 

"You can't fault me for trying, though. I think New York's turning me into a Yankees fan, myself." 

"Yeah?" Rudy swore he could hear the smile in that word even through his earpiece. 

"Yeah," he said, pulling out into traffic. He was never going to hit the tunnel before it got too heavy, so he settled in for a conversation with the comforting knowledge that Pappy would always be in his ear and he'd already disabled the safety release inside the trunk. "I'm starting to think I might stay a while." 

"I'm sure if the people of New York had any idea what you do, they'd be glad to hear it." 

"I like to think so," said Rudy. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Turkey on an assignment and wound up fighting three Mossad agents in a bathhouse? Nobody was wearing more than a towel. I got a concussion from being hit in the head with an urn." 

"I missed the file on that one," said Pappy. "Did you win?" 

"Of course I won! But it gets better than that," said Rudy. 

THE END


End file.
